Tips for frugal gardening

Who doesn’t want a picture-perfect garden? After all, if you’re going to invest the time and effort into revamping your landscape you don’t want to cut corners, right?

Actually, you can take shortcuts in the garden to save a lot of money without compromising the finished product. This mostly involves using some inexpensive items in place of more costly ones when possible. Here are a few ideas to get you started. Then use your imagination to cut costs even further.

Radical recycling: Container gardening is an easy way to add visual appeal to a home. Containers are generally simple to maintain and can be moved or changed as whimsy directs. Containers come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, from small terra-cotta pots to large window boxes.

Large containers can be somewhat costly, and filling them to the brim with rich soil can be even more so. Instead of spending a fortune, look for inexpensive resin containers that have the look of real ceramic or stone.

“Fill the bottom half of a rather large container with crushed up aluminum cans and those discarded plastic flower pots that your annuals were packaged in at the nursery.

“Fill the rest of the container with soil and you’ll save money in the process. Most plants have shallow roots and they will never even reach the cans you have in the bottom. What’s more, the containers are much lighter from this effective “fill,” and have improved drainage.

Use what you’ve got: Why spend a lot of money on specialty items that cost more when you can use what you have around the house, or modify inexpensive gardening tools for your purposes? For example, many at-home gardeners enjoy the look of topiaries in their yard.

“Topiary forms can be $20 or more, depending upon size. Instead, use a tomato plant cage with the ends tied off to mimic a similar shape. The cages cost a fraction of the “forms,” and no one will know the difference once your topiary has filled it out.

Make your own soil: Pre-packaged gardening blends cost more than if you whip up some on your own. The cost is even less if you mix in some home-grown compost.

“Creating a rich soil can be as simple as mixing in some fallen leaves that you’ve let sit in a trash bag over the winter with some ventilation holes cut in it. Mix the leaf debris into your soil for spring planting.